The story is about seven pages long and tells of a high-strung scientist named Crawford Tillinghast who has invented a machine that — partly by stimulating the pineal gland — allows its users to see the vast and terrible layers of reality that coexist with the world perceived by the five senses.note The imagery here draws from many sources, but the most seemingly evident one must be ruled out. DXM was not developed until the '50s. He forces the unnamed narrator to undergo this soul-destroying experience, as revenge for previously dismissing Crawford's theories.

The film takes that setup and runs with it. Jeffrey Combs plays Tillinghast, who is a more innocent character than in the story. As the film opens, he activates the "resonator" (basically four large tuning forks connected to a giant computer), which glows hot pink and allows him to see eel-like creatures floating in the air. One of the creatures attacks him; he shuts the resonator off and runs to tell his mentor/collaborator, the kinky Dr. Pretorius (Ted Sorel).

Tillinghast is charged with Pretorius' murder and confined to a mental institution. But "girl wonder" psychiatrist Dr. McMichaels (Barbara Crampton), sees a pattern in Tillinghast's ravings and suspects he may be telling the truth. She has him released into her custody and the two of them, accompanied by a policeman (Ken Foree), return to the house where the whole mess went down.

Repeated experiments with the resonator bring Pretorius Back from the Dead with a fresh new attitude and a few extra appendages, make McMichaels the recipient of the most revolting screen "kiss" ever (and later induce her to don some fetishwear that happens to be lying around), and leave Tillinghast bald, traumatized, and covered in goo.

When the resonator is switched on (extradimensionally, by Pretorius) for the last time, Tillinghast's pineal gland pushes through his skull and pops out of his forehead on a stalk. Transported to a hospital, he goes on a brain-eating rampage which eventually takes him back to the house, where he tries to de-brain McMichaels as she attempts to blow up the machine. She counters by biting off his gland in a scene nearly as gross and fully as symbolic as her kiss from Pretorius.

Finally, Pretorius and Tillinghast battle one another to the gooey, gory death. McMichaels succeeds in destroying the laboratory, but when she tries to tell her story she is confined in the very institution at which she used to work. So it goes.

The story and film provide examples of:

Artistic License-Psychology: A colleague discovers that Doctor Crampton is wearing fetish gear under her clothing, declares her insane and commits her on the spot, and orders her to undergo electroshock therapy? Ummm... no. Not even in the profession's darkest days.

Eye Scream: At one point, an eyeball is sucked out of a woman's head and her frontal lobe is consumed through her eye socket. There's also several instances of people's third eyes bursting out of their foreheads on stalks, and these eyes are occasionally subject to injury themselves.

Humanoid Abomination: It's pretty clear when we see him after his first "death" that the only things still remotely human about Pretorius are his sexual deviancy and his face.

Idiot Ball: After the trio survive the first encounter with Pretorius and shut off the resonator, Katherine proclaims that they must try the experiment again. Naturally Crawford and Bubba are horrified by the idea.

Jerkass Has a Point: The doctor in charge of the mental facility, Dr. Bloch, may treat Dr McMichaels harshly in her interactions with her but most of her criticisms are completely valid.

Naturally, nobody believes Crawford Tillinghast's story of strange creatures existing out of phase with us that can be seen when our pineal glands are stimulated. He is taken for a schizoprenic and rightly so. Inverted later when Dr. Katherine McMichaels who believes Crawfords story and wants to continue his experiments against his and the accompanying police officer's protests.

Later, Bubba becomes the voice of reason in response to the traumatized Tillinghast and the junkie-like Katherine

Phlegmings: Every monster, but particularly the bat creature at the end.

Pineal Weirdness: The mad scientist stimulates his pineal gland, allowing him to see into other dimensions. Freshly put to use, it grows to the extent that it pops out of his head on a stalk. To the further amusement of anyone familiar with brain anatomy, as the stalk extends in front, yet the pineal gland is near the back of the human brain. (The pineal gland is the organ of enhanced perception in the original story, too, though without the popping-out-from-the-forehead bit.)

Title Drop: In the film - "He's trying to start the resonator... from beyond!"

Vomiting Cop: Bubba turns away and vomits after Pretorius appears to the trio for the first time.

Weirdness Censor: We're surrounded, every second of every day, by bizarre entities doing bizarre things. Our senses are simply not made to perceive them. Normally, theirs aren't either. It's better that way.

What Happened to the Mouse?: Bubba is shown carrying a weightlifting bar with his belongings when they arrive at the house but it's never seen being used or handled after that.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy